Reflections on the LSAC National Longitudinal Bar Passage Study: Two Findings That Have Immediate Impact

This brief article discusses two specific findings that may be easy to overlook in the volume of national bar passage data Linda Wightman has produced for LSAC

The Federal Air Pollution Program

An awareness of the awesome threat-both to our health and to our economy-posed by a polluted atmosphere has long been widespread. Only recently, however, has concern been translated into conduct on the part of those whose initiative is essential if we are to meet one of the most technical challenges of our industrial society

The American Jury on Trial: Psychological Perspectives (Book Review)

Book Review of S. Kassin & L. Wrightsman, The American Jury on Trial: Psychological Perspectives (1988

The New Jersey Estoppel Statute in Subdivision Control Administration

Subdivision control statutes allow a municipality to supervise the subdivision of land in the public interest. As part of the subdivision approval process, state enabling acts authorize municipalities to require the developer to install paved streets, drainage and sewage facilities, water supplies, and other improvements that are necessary to the development. While emphasizing the necessity of protecting the public by requiring these necessary improvements, courts and legislatures have neglected to give the developer the assurance of certainty that these requirements, once imposed, will not later be changed. This assurance is necessary, as the developer must be able to rely on the extent of his development costs when estimating his development expenses

Competency to Stand Trial under the Senate and House Proposed Revisions of the Federal Criminal Code

In 1980 the judiciary committees of the Senate and the House of Representatives reported bills revising the federal criminal code. Although neither of these bills was enacted by the Ninety-Sixth Congress, they represent the culmination of efforts, over a period of a decade, to revise and reform the federal criminal laws in a comprehensive code

Punitive Damages, Criminal Punishment, and Proportionality: The Importance of Legislative Limits

This Article addresses the timely and controversial topic of constitutional limits on punitive damages and brings a criminal punishment theory perspective to the analysis of this issue. The question of how to determine when punishment is unconstitutionally excessive has been and continues to be a subject of intense debate in the courts and scholarly circles. The United States Supreme Court has subjected criminal sanctions, criminal forfeitures, and punitive damages to a proportionality requirement, but the Court uses different approaches to the proportionality analysis depending on the type of punishment. In the criminal context, the Court has retreated in large part from proportionality review, deferring to legislative maxima for criminal sentences. By contrast, where there is no legislative cap on the punitive damages a jury can award, the Court has undertaken a more active role in determining the proportionality of punitive damages. Similarly, where there is no legislative limit to the amount of property that can be forfeited, the Court has engaged in a more active proportionality review. An analysis of the Supreme Court’s different proportionality reviews demonstrates that the different approaches are explained by the presence or absence of legislative limits on punishment. This Article examines the nature of punishment and the requirements for just punishment—notice, proportionality, and limits—and applies these principles to punitive damages. It concludes that a system that imposes no limits on the amount of punitive damages awards contravenes the principle of notice and leaves courts with little guidance in assessing the excessiveness of particular awards. To bring punitive damages into conformity with the principles of just punishment and to provide courts with a benchmark for evaluating the proportionality of punitive damages awards, the Article concludes with proposals for legislative limits on such awards. Because of the importance of limits on punishment, including punitive damages, this Article suggests how states can impose caps on punitive damages awards that serve the policy interests of punishing and deterring wrongful and harmful conduct, and how states can use caps to justify large awards in appropriate cases that will survive excessiveness challenges